Speak Spanish or French NOW Only $229* Join us at our next Open House, and learn how quickly you can start speaking a new language with our proven conversational method. p-------------.. I Enioya free trial Group lesson I I on us and enter our drawing for a 111, I FREE GROUP COURSE I ::> I I Tuesday; Sept. 9th at 6:30 p.m. I I .s I . I I Berlitz I N I No purchase necessary. Void where prohibited by I(]'N. I @ .-------------.. Call Berlitz today! 1.800.606.9723 Or register on-line at www.berlit%.com/enroll * Price based on minimum group size of 5 people. Tax, materials and $20 registration fee not included Free Group Course (retail value $229) and lesson available in French or Spanish only. "A greatly gifted young violinist." The Ne_ York Times -" ÍoiiÒ"\ ; RACHEL BARTON B..a . , & Joachim Violin Concertos . . "-=fI, " , Th-e '"st: , recordIng 'to pair 'the t:.p Elrøhlns Violin t , Concerlo ""''th 'the ce/ebrøt: d ""ork hat: most: , '/nspire-d It:; '\ ,,<', "Joseph .JoClu::hi",,"s to . Concerlo 'In t:he Hungarian Styl." CEDILLE RECORDS Outstandmg Classical Recordings from Chicago 773.989.251 5 · www.cedillerecords.org L O ND ON G t;t (f. CO ' WOLD ""','/z"/ " I 1 FLATS ;?A fq COTTAGES ;, , \ , :!. . EARNUM CHRIS J 800-366-2048 - 423-652-2048 www.farnum-christ.com .,> 1-- 23 SMILES PER HOUR J Electric cycle turns errands into pleasure trips, commutes into joyrides. Go 25 miles - recharge for a dime. Easy to ride, quiet, pollution free, road legal. $1,399 with no risk guarantee, :-. <= _: ".: " .:'! www.egovehicles.com/ny '!t ' tfj.:':' . - f ust Strings . Strings for Musical Instruments . GUitar, Bass, Orchestral, Folk & Ethnic . World's Largest Selection WWW.juststrings.com the brights pot. com Website and catalog of Mission, Mica, Tiffany lamps and lighting fixtures. Kichler's Canyon View Outdoor-Indoor Lantern The Bright Spot, Inc. 1-800- 736-0126 www.thebrightspot.com ....--..... .- .....- 78 THE NEW YORKER, SEPTEMBER 8, 2003 her was how young he was-how young I so many of the dead were these days. Great numbers of them were no more than children, who clattered around on skateboards or went racing past her win- dow on their way to the playground. One, a boy with a strawberry discol- oration, on his cheek, liked to pretend that the rocking horses he tossed himself around on were real horses, the horses he had brushed and fed on his farm before they were killed in the bombing. An- other liked to swoop down the slide over and over again, hammering his feet into the gravel as he thought about his par- ents and his two older brothers, who were still alive. He had watched them lift free of the same illness that had slowly sucked him under. He did not like to talk about it. This was during a war, though it was difficult for any of them to remember which one. O ccasionally; one of the dead, some- one who had just completed the crossing, would mistake the city for Heaven. It was a misunderstanding that never persisted for long. What kind of Heaven had the blasting sound of garbage trucks in the morning, and chewing gum on the pavement, and the smell of fish rotting by the river? What kind of Hell, for that matter, had bak- eries and dogwood trees and perfect blue days that made the hairs on the back of your neck rise on end? No, the city was not Heaven, and it was not Hell, and it certainly was not the world. It stood to reason, then, that it had to be something else. More and more people came to adopt the theory that it was an extension of life itself-a sort of outer room-and that they would remain there only so long as they endured in living memo When the last person who had actually known them died, they would pass over into whatever came next. It was true that most of the city's occupants went away after sixty or sev- enty years. While this did not prove the theory; it certainly served to nour- ish it. There were stories of men and women who had been in the city much longer, for cenmries and more, but there were always such stories, in every time and place, and who knew whether to be- lieve them? Every neighborhood had its gather- ing spot, a place where people could come together to trade news of the other world. There was the colonnade in the monument district, and the One and Only Tavern in the warehouse district, and right next to the greenhouse, in the center of the conservatory district was Andrei Kalatozov's Russian Tea Room. Kalatozov poured the tea he brewed from a brass-colored samovar into small porcelain cups that he served on pol- ished wooden platters. His wife and daughter had died a few weeks before he did, in an accident involving a land mine they had rooted up out of the family garden. He was watching through the kitchen window when it happened. His wife's spade struck a jagged hunk of metal so cankered with rust from its cen- tury underground that he did not realize what it was until it exploded. Two weeks later, when he put the razor to his throat, it was with the hope that he would be re- united with his family in Heaven. And, sure enough, there they were-his wife and daughter-smiling and taking coats at the door of the tearoom. Kalatozov watched them as he sliced a lemon into wedges and arranged the wedges on a saucer. He was the happiest man in the room-the happiest man in any room. The city may not have been Heaven, but it was Heaven enough for him. Morning to evening, he listened to his customers as they shared the latest news about the war. The Americans and the Middle East had resumed hostilities, as had China and Spain and Australia and the Netherlands. Brazil was developing an- other mutagenic virus, one that would resist the latest antitoxins. Or maybe it was Italy: Or maybe Indonesia. There were so many rumors that it was hard to know for sure. Now and then, someone who had died only a day or two before would hap- pen into one of the centers of commu- nication-the tavern or the tearoom, the river market or the colonnade-and the legions of the dead would mass around him, shouldering and jostling him for in- formation. It was a.l\vays the same: ''Where did you live?" "Do you know anything about Central America?" "Is it true what they're saying about the ice caps?" "I'm trying to find out about my cousin. He lived in Arizona His name was Lewis Zeigler, spelled L-E-W-I-S. . . .""What's happening with the situation along the